Fight Like Hell

Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor and Tour De France champion, is credited with saying, “If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages then maybe we can learn from them. When you think about it, what other choice is there but hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up or fight like hell.”

Of late I am in the process of God’s yanking me upward in my faith and hope. Last week I read the book, “Rees Howells; Intercessor” by Norman Grubb. It was like a spanking that made me laugh and cry all at once. When I was a kid growing up in the harsh realities of Milwaukee’s ‘60s I had a good friend who bragged that when his dad spanked him he would laugh. I knew his dad to be a brute and I didn’t believe him until one day I was a witness to one of these weird rituals. Now, I know the illustration fails to be entirely accurate to the character of God (God is not a brute; although you might think so if you managed to push Him hard enough) but the idea of a spanking making you laugh at yourself is the best way I can describe what I learned from this incredible book. Read it for yourself….I think you’ll discover what I mean.

Anyway, all this takes me to Lance’s quote that finishes with, “fight like hell”. I’ve fought like hell. In fact, going back to my Milwaukee roots, one of the survival tactics I lived by was to spread far and wide the following information: if you pick a fight with me, you will likely win. Just know this: you will never forget me! I’ll be the skinny little white guy who left teeth and toe-nail prints on any part of your body I could reach. Think ‘Tasmanian Devil’. You’ll always wish you had not enjoyed the pleasure of beating me up!” That strategy probably saved my life.

Now, I’m no Lance Armstrong and the following musing is with all due respect to him. I’m just Randy Dean and from my perspective I’ve learned that there is a better way to fight. It IS fighting in the same spirit that Lance suggests except with a different root source in place. I’ve found out that Heaven fights too. The difference is that heaven always wins and uses temporary loses as stepping stones toward greater victories. One story in the Old Testament says that ONE angel from God went to battle and killed 185,000 skilled and successful warriors in one night. I’ll take those odds.

My point here is this: GET YOUR HOPES UP! Refuse to live by resources short of heaven’s bounty! HOPE like crazy. HOPE like there IS a tomorrow. HOPE in spite of every haunting doubt. Grab, claw, scratch and snag at heaven’s extravagant treasury. And if by some definition, you “lose” (whatever that may mean!) for God in Heaven’s sake...at the very least, LEAVE SOME TEETH MARKS BEHIND AS A TOKEN FOR YOUR ENEMY TO REMEMBER YOU BY!